leue@galen.crd.ge.com (Bill Leue) (05/21/91)
I just bought FontMonger, an application which can convert fonts among PostScript Type 1, Type 3 and TrueType formats. It has the proverbial "user interface from Hell" and generally useless documentation, but nevertheless it DOES do the job of converting Adobe Type 1 PS fonts to TrueType. (very slowly!) Although I'm moderately satisfied with the result, there are a couple of puzzles about the TT fonts that I got as the output. For instance, the TT Garamond light doesn't look nearly as good on the screen at 12 points as did the PS1 version running with ATM 2.0. For large sizes (24 pts or more), the results look pretty much the same, and all sizes seem to print decently. I wonder why the TT screen rendering is so lousy? The other puzzle concerns the behavior of MS Word 4.0b. (This is under System 7.0, BTW) Because I didn't like the look of the rendered TT Garamond fonts at 12 points, I decided to install the 12-point screen font. I did this by dragging the appropriate bitmap into the System File. When I brought up Word again and tried to type, I got some really bizarre behavior. The cursor insisted on staying at about a 72-point size. Each time I typed a character, the cursor moved to the right about an inch or more, but nothing was typed on the screen except the "highlight" color. It was as it I selected a bunch of blanks -- just the highlight color but no characters. Removing the bitmapped font restored normal behavior. I've heard rumors of a new version of MS Word that works better with TT. Is the behavior I've described a known problem with 4.0b? Anyone from Microsoft want to comment? Thanks! -Bill Leue leue@crd.ge.com
Christopher Tate <CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu> (05/22/91)
In article <GLENN.91May21154750@huxley.huxley.bitstream.com>, glenn@huxley.huxley.bitstream.com (Glenn P. Parker) says: >I haven't seen any FontMonger output, so I don't really know if it would >qualify as "lousy" in my book. Nevertheless, I'm not surprised that the >conversion is imperfect, especially for small sizes. > >So a better question is "Why is the conversion from PS1 to TT so lousy?" My guess is that it's because the hinting methods are rather different, and FontMonger's translation between the two is probably rather limited simply by having to *translate* a PostScript hint to TrueType. A human could design a new set of hints to optimize TrueType results, but the program has no such capability -- it doesn't "know" what the font is supposed to look like, and can't evaluate the "optimum" method of hinting it in TrueType. ------- Christopher Tate | "The soldier came knocking upon the Queen's door; | He said 'I am not fighting for you anymore....'" cxt105@psuvm.psu.edu | cxt105@psuvm.bitnet | -- Suzanne Vega
glenn@huxley.huxley.bitstream.com (Glenn P. Parker) (05/22/91)
In article <19746@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> leue@galen.crd.ge.com (Bill Leue) writes: > Although I'm moderately satisfied with the result, there are a couple > of puzzles about the TT fonts that I got as the output. For instance, > the TT Garamond light doesn't look nearly as good on the screen at > 12 points as did the PS1 version running with ATM 2.0. For large > sizes (24 pts or more), the results look pretty much the same, and all > sizes seem to print decently. I wonder why the TT screen rendering is > so lousy? Sorry to nitpick about wording, but it seems unfair to lay the blame on TrueType. TrueType is only doing what it was told to in the font created via FontMonger. I haven't seen any FontMonger output, so I don't really know if it would qualify as "lousy" in my book. Nevertheless, I'm not surprised that the conversion is imperfect, especially for small sizes. So a better question is "Why is the conversion from PS1 to TT so lousy?" -- Glenn P. Parker glenn@bitstream.com Bitstream, Inc. uunet!huxley!glenn 215 First Street BIX: parker Cambridge, MA 02142-1270
glenn@huxley.huxley.bitstream.com (Glenn P. Parker) (05/22/91)
In article <91141.174326CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu>, CXT105@psuvm.psu.edu (Christopher Tate) writes: > In article <GLENN.91May21154750@huxley.huxley.bitstream.com>, > glenn@huxley.huxley.bitstream.com (Glenn P. Parker) says: >> ... >> So a better question is "Why is the conversion from PS1 to TT so lousy?" > > My guess is that it's because the hinting methods are rather different, A bit of an understatement. :-) > and FontMonger's translation between the two is probably rather limited > simply by having to *translate* a PostScript hint to TrueType. Yes, of course. The question centers on the quality of that translation. > A human could design a new set of hints to optimize TrueType results, but > the program has no such capability -- it doesn't "know" what the font is > supposed to look like, and can't evaluate the "optimum" method of hinting > it in TrueType. This I would dispute. The specification for PS1 fonts is publicly distributed, so it should be possible (in theory :-) for a program to "know" what the font is supposed to look like, right down to the pixel. What's more, TrueType is a general purpose language, unlike the standard PS1 format. At *worst*, it should be possible to implement a complete PS1 hinting machine in TrueType, then just feed it the original PS1 fonts. I suspect there are far better options, but the point is that there is almost no fundamental restriction on the final quality of the translation. Sorry I have to hedge a little bit on that statement, but I *can* think of at least one thing that a font conversion program has little control over: the fixed-point resolution of TrueType. Nevertheless, I don't think FontMonger is running into that limitation. I suspect that it is simply not a complete emulation of the PS1 engine. -- Glenn P. Parker glenn@bitstream.com Bitstream, Inc. uunet!huxley!glenn 215 First Street BIX: parker Cambridge, MA 02142-1270
m_herodotus@csc32.enet.dec.com (Mario Herodotus) (05/24/91)
--
Basically the question here is not why FontMonger's conversion from
PS1 to TrueType is bad, the original post says the output is fine, it is just
the screen display at 12 points that looks lousy.
I've had the same problem when converting fonts with FontMonger. But
I've noticed that it is the bitmap font that looks lousy not the outline font.
I have converted from TT to PS1 never the other way around.
What I've noticed is that if the font I am converting is installed in
my system, then FontMonger seems to scale the installed bitmap and not create a
new bitmap from the outline. This happened when I tried to convert the system
fonts (Chicago, Geneva, and Monaco). I would be curious to see what haapens if
you retry the conversion after deinstalling the screen fonts you are converting
from the system.
Another alternative is to create a bitmap font size that you probably
won't use (8 point for instance). This would force TrueType to render the
screen font from the outline. Your 12 point font should look OK. (This works
for PS1 fonts, I know cause I tried it, but I am not familiar enough wit TT
to bet on this method.)
Mario
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------kenh@eclectic.COM (Ken Hancock) (05/26/91)
In article <19746@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> leue@galen.crd.ge.com (Bill Leue) writes: >I just bought FontMonger, an application which can convert fonts among >PostScript Type 1, Type 3 and TrueType formats. It has the proverbial >"user interface from Hell" and generally useless documentation, but >nevertheless it DOES do the job of converting Adobe Type 1 PS fonts >to TrueType. (very slowly!) I don't think the user interface is that bad...it could be improved in places, the standard files could be used, and things could be cleaned up in a few places and it would help a lot... >The other puzzle concerns the behavior of MS Word 4.0b. (This is >under System 7.0, BTW) Because I didn't like the look of the rendered >TT Garamond fonts at 12 points, I decided to install the 12-point screen font. >I did this by dragging the appropriate bitmap into the System File. >When I brought up Word again and tried to type, I got some really >bizarre behavior. The cursor insisted on staying at about a 72-point >size. The large cursor is most likely because the character metrics are being generated by the TrueType outline. FontMonger takes a very conservative approach to converting fonts -- it takes the largest character extents and uses that for the leading so that no ascender will ever overlap a descender. I see this as slightly undesirable, but not awful, since 99% of your applications allow you to control leading. Check out either next week's or the week after's TidBITS for a review of FontMonger vs. Metamorphosis pro. It's in the works. Ken -- Ken Hancock | INTERNET: kenh@eclectic.com Isle Systems | Compuserve: >INTERNET: kenh@eclectic.com Macintosh Consulting | AOL: KHancock | Disclaimer: My opinions are mine, | your opinions are yours. Simple, isn't it?